Dateline: Norton Air Force Base, 14 July 1950-The Soviets protest AF pilot Col. Joel Knight's nomination as the Aviation Attaché to Moscow. Joel faces a demotion or a forced resignation. Major General Garret "Red" McNeil offers Joel a temporary 'piece of cake' assignment with the CIA . . . a "flying job, pure and simple." Joel's mission? Fly undercover to China as a WWII war veteran pilot-for-hire in a converted Navy Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon and extract a defecting Russian atomic scientist. If captured, Knight will be shot as a spy. Meanwhile in the Kremlin, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Beria plots to unleash A-bombs on U.S. and U.N. troops in Korea and blame China. The CIA's complicated evacuation plan backfires. A high-stakes getaway-turned-deadly endangers the lives of not one, but six Russian scientists, plus their CIA rescuers. A run-for-their-lives pursuit by the ruthless KGB plunges the fugitives into a nail-biting race against time in the Siberian wilderness. The against-all-odds mission subjects Joel's skills as a leader and a pilot to the ultimate test. If Joel fails-all will die. Knight joins forces with an unlikely ally-a secretive, Mongolian collective farm commissar. Joel discovers Soviet crews unloading a dozen atomic bombs at Magdagachi Air Base. When Joel steals a lumbering Antonov An-2 biplane and flies toward freedom, stormy skies fill with Russian MiG-9 jet fighters. The clock counts down to a shocking climax. Will the three-way one-upmanship between the Soviets, the Mongolians, and the Americans result in a daring escape or death? Will Joel reach General Douglas MacArthur in time to convince the stubborn, five-star general to evacuate before Russian bombers launch their full-scale atomic attacks?